OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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coopasonic
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

IS TSS anything like TTS? Just curious since you keep using it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

I assumed they were one and the same for Tabletop Simulator I was just using the same abbreviation because I am not yet a user and I don't know any better.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Whoops, my mistake. TTS.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Tablesop Simulator
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

more like tableSLOP simulator, you know what i mean? eh...huh? nudge nudge
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Oddly enough I used TableSlop Simulator to start learning how to play Fields of Fire this weekend, being taught by someone else (it's a fully solo game). It worked surprisingly well as a tool in that regard.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

Smoove_B wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 4:54 pm Oddly enough I used TableSlop Simulator to start learning how to play Fields of Fire this weekend, being taught by someone else (it's a fully solo game). It worked surprisingly well as a tool in that regard.
Do you have a list of good solo games on TTS? TSS? STD? TrainSTop Stimulator...
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

I hadn't actually looked, but I do know that Combat! (100% solo board game) does have a workshop:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 1845564899

Maybe check this:

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/fil ... =356787994
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

StableStop Timulater is not friendly to a new user.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by TheMix »

LordMortis wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 6:40 pm StableStop Timulater is not friendly to a new user.
Back in the early days, they had a tutorial for new users that would go over some of the basic commands/actions. See if you can find something like that.

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Once you get a few of the basics down, it becomes pretty easy. How you manage your hand of cards, how to zoom, how to shuffle, picking up one card vs many....we can give you an overview when we get a game going.

This one helped me.. Episode 2 is actually a good starting point.

Also, any game with the word “scripted” in the workshop is preferable to those that don’t, in my opinion. It just means someone has automated setup, management, or some variation of such. Makes things even easier when playing.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

I had to go to a youtube tutorial to figure out how to add a workshop game. That was as far as I got last night. Maybe over the weekend I'll get some time to play with the UI. Not sure how that will help me figure out how to play with friends but I guess w neede learn to crawl on land before learning to swim through the skies.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

It seems much more daunting than it really is.
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OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Zarathud »

Hook up with hepcat and he’ll be your guide. Whenever I don’t know a TTS feature, he’ll show me the ropes. And harness. And gimp mask.

It is easier than it looks when you have a scripted game loaded.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

We played nearly an entire's year worth of Gloomhaven over TTS, so if that's possible then anything is. :D
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Zarathud wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:03 pm Hook up with hepcat
OK, but no kissing.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Zarathud »

AWS260 wrote:
Zarathud wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 1:03 pm Hook up with hepcat
OK, but no kissing.
As long as he can touch (using the TTS hand function), you’ll be fine. Long gentle strokes, careful worker placement followed by gentle shuffling and rolling. Then afterwards a table toss.
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“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

The only thing I touch are the hearts of the millions of people who tune in each week to watch my twitch channel "Cosplay the Hepcat Way".
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Your commitment to portraying cartoon characters that refuse to wear pants is amazing.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Just got back from a group session of HEROES OF TENEFYR.

This is a cooperative deck builder in which each player plays a standard RPG archetype (Cleric, Thief, Barbarian, Bard) attempting to make it through 10 dungeons and face off against a final boss at the end.

Each dungeon is filled with 4 or so monster cards which have a certain HP level and perhaps a special ability. You have one round (every player getting a turn) to kill a monster, otherwise you are defeated, kicked out of the dungeon, and have to advance your doom track 2 spaces. On your turn, you draw 3 cards from your deck which must either all be played, or all discarded. If you choose to discard, you can draw 3 more cards which must also be played or discarded, etc. Because your deck is your "life," discarding cards reduces the number of turns you'll get to play in the dungeon - but also may be necessary in order to get the required damage to defeat a monster. It's a cool press-your-luck mechanic.

If you defeat a monster, you get to keep its card which often gives higher damage than your basic cards and often has a special ability. If your group defeats all monsters in a dungeon, you get to choose from two rewards. These may include getting the chance to purge your deck of basic cards, giving cards to other players, or other bonuses.

Play continues in this fashion as you work together to try to make it through as many dungeons as possible (and thus making your decks as strong as possible) before having to battle the boss.

I really enjoyed this one. It's got all the mechanics of a good deck builder (purging cards, gaining cards, setting up cool combos), but is also highly cooperative in that teamwork is an absolute must given you have only one shot at killing an enemy per round. Knowing your deck (and those of your teammates) becomes critical as you wager whether to keep fighting in a dungeon or back out and cut your losses.

Great little game that is easy to teach, light enough for a filler session between bigger games, but also filled with nice strategic choices. One of our group got this through the expansion KS, so we'll try that out at some point. It adds a bunch of new cards, some new classes with unique mechanics, and new bosses to fight.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Oooh, I didn't realize there was an expansion for Heroes of Tenefyr. Another one to add to my list, I guess. I liked this game quite a bit - quick to setup but definitely challenging - the press your luck nature of trying to decide how many dungeons you can clear and how risky to get gives it a different feel from many deckbuilders.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Ghosts of Saltmarsh is coming as an “expansion” to the D&D Adventure series

Our group has been playing this campaign since Sept. Little B 12.3 is SO excited to play it in board game form.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Holman »

Played LORDS OF WATERDEEP for the first time in several years, this time with family: me, my wife, 17yo son, and 80yo mother-in-law. (14yo son was busy doing a school project.)

If you've played it, you know it's very good fun and dripping with theme. My MIL (who lives with us, and who is slowly becoming a boardgamer) enjoyed it too. It took her a few turns to get her head around all of the mechanics not because of any cognitive decline but because she's still not entirely used to thinking like a boardgamer (and because some of the print is very small).

Plus, she has zero familiarity with D&D itself, so describing the narrative was genuinely enjoyable. Son and I got to explain how thieves could be good guys, what role a "cleric" plays, and how to imagine a beholder or an owlbear.

I forget what a fast-moving game it is. Even with three neophyte players (and my dim memory of playing before), we taught and finished a whole game in just over two hours.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Holman wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 5:11 pm Played LORDS OF WATERDEEP for the first time in several years, this time with family: me, my wife, 17yo son, and 80yo mother-in-law. (14yo son was busy doing a school project.)

If you've played it, you know it's very good fun and dripping with theme. My MIL (who lives with us, and who is slowly becoming a boardgamer) enjoyed it too. It took her a few turns to get her head around all of the mechanics not because of any cognitive decline but because she's still not entirely used to thinking like a boardgamer (and because some of the print is very small).

Plus, she has zero familiarity with D&D itself, so describing the narrative was genuinely enjoyable. Son and I got to explain how thieves could be good guys, what role a "cleric" plays, and how to imagine a beholder or an owlbear.

I forget what a fast-moving game it is. Even with three neophyte players (and my dim memory of playing before), we taught and finished a whole game in just over two hours.
I agree, Lords of Waterdeep absolutely makes for a terrific gateway game for those new to modern tabletop gaming. In my experience, playing the game using suitably-themed meeples helps immensely, too:

Enlarge Image

They add much more immersive thematic character and flavour to the game, which makes it feel more like you're actually recruiting rogues, wizards, clerics, and fighters rather than just moving around abstracted Eurogame-style coloured cubes.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Holman »

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 6:13 pm
They add much more immersive thematic character and flavour to the game, which makes it feel more like you're actually recruiting rogues, wizards, clerics, and fighters rather than just moving around abstracted Eurogame-style coloured cubes.
Those definitely look fun!

I did a quest that required eight different adventurers. My son snorted and said "No way do you get eight people over for D&D at one time."
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

Tonight we played the "Dead or Alive" scenario of Forgotten Waters. Great writing and voice acting, once again, and I'm impressed by how they managed to generate a genuinely climactic conclusion to this one. Very fun, and a great co-op evening with my wife.
YellowKing wrote: Thu May 27, 2021 10:28 pm HEROES OF TENEFYR.
I cannot see the name of that game without thinking of this:

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 6:13 pm I agree, Lords of Waterdeep absolutely makes for a terrific gateway game for those new to modern tabletop gaming. In my experience, playing the game using suitably-themed meeples helps immensely, too:
I picked up a very similar set from Meeplewood on Etsy. They're really charming and help sell the theme.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

LordMortis wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 4:21 pm
hepcat wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 3:42 pm I have to wonder if this is an actual limitation in the game, or if it's something that could be overcome with another strategy? In chess there are powerful moves that might seem insurmountable...until someone comes up with a countermove that can defeat it. i.e. is the game really broken? or is it just waiting for a player to find a better strategy?
In a two player game there is no better strategy. If you aren't taking grabbing science/space then the other guy is taking what you don't and building a machine you can't keep up with. The more players, the more competition there is for this "best" strategy, and the more room for hate drafting, the less effective it is. I think a four players it's viable to de emphasize science/space at least on turn 1 and even 2 to see if there is enough competition.

Before it became more and more obvious that science/space tag combo was the preferred direction, the more fun the game was for me precisely because there is so much going on. So much to explore but at the core of that exploration (in a two and usually three player game) is getting more card (science) and consolidating power toward victory points outside of terraforming (space).

I still enjoy it enough to not roll my eyes it being the game of ubiquity but the magic is gone unless we're doing 4 players and in a 4 players game, two rounds is a full day of gaming.

We did six rounds over two days of three player games. You'll be happy to know science card draw to space tag power lost one of those games.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I'm surprised you folks just don't call the game the moment someone buys the first space and science tag cards.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

hepcat wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 1:25 pm I'm surprised you folks just don't call the game the moment someone buys the first space and science tag cards.
Depending on the scenario, it probably should be called the moment one player gets to the point where they can get to 4+ extra cards reliably drawn in one turn, even as it looks competitive for other players until about turn 8 or 9. What I'm surprised at is that this is still the primary game that gets brought to the table after it's been totally mapped out two player and highly probable in 3 player. I need to convince everyone else to look at new stuff. Still, I don't actively hate the gaming is a reason to actually see people for the first time in a year and half.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Played another round of HEROES OF TENEFYR, this time with the expansion characters, new monsters, new bosses, etc.

Overall I think we were all slightly disappointed with the new classes (we played Ranger, Paladin, Tactician, and Gravemaster). Of the four, the Tactician seemed to be the most used with her ability to have a player put a card from their deck on top. The Paladin felt a bit like a watered down Cleric, which I guess is thematically accurate but wasn't much fun to play. The Ranger was a joke - we barely used his pet, but I don't know if it was an issue with the class or the player. The Gravemaster wound up with a couple of Draw 3 cards that saved our bacon a couple of times, but his primary skill wasn't super.

This was our first time playing with these characters, so it definitely could have been inexperience not taking full advantage of their powers, but we all agreed at the end of the night we'd have been better off mixing a couple in with a couple of base classes instead of going all-expansion right out of the gate. We did not play the Enchanter or Gear guy (can't remember his name), and they do look pretty powerful, so they may be better.

At any rate, we still managed to come within a couple of damage of beating the boss even after only managing to get through 7 dungeons.

Next week we kick off DETECTIVE: VIENNA CONNECTION. We've gone through every bit of content for DETECTIVE that's out so far, so we're looking forward to the challenge of this one.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I played Cryo, a game about a colony ship that crash-lands on a frozen alien planet. The survivors have to salvage what they can from the crash site and retreat to caverns below the surface before sunset.

Each turn, you have to decide if you're going salvage resources (which you need to do pretty much anything), rescue survivors from stasis pods, or send them to safety in the caverns. There's a nice tension between the potential actions: everything you can do on the surface will give you some benefit, such as a resource or an upgrade that lets you operate more efficiently. On the other hand, sending survivors to the caverns costs you resources, but it's the only way to score points, which is how you win the game (and makes sense thematically).

I ended up winning, but no one played particularly well, since it was our first game. I'd definitely like to try it again. It has some real strategic depth, but plays quickly. Our game lasted ~90 minutes, and I bet that could come down to an hour once people know what they're doing.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Tao »

Just prior to the pandemic I/we had a nascent gaming group going, three regulars and an occasional fourth player, which was near perfect. Back in mid-April I started reaching out to try and get folks together again and only successfully re-enlisted one other.

For the past several weeks the two of us have been primarily playing Dice Throne Adventures. After a few false starts with some bad rule mistakes and a change of hero we got things going. Our party is Treant and Paladin.

Thus far the portal crawls have not been too bad but the bosses tend to kick our butts. We played against the Fallen Barbarian (boss one) three times. the first time I got a rule horribly wrong that made the match way harder by buffing the boss rather than the players, second attempt he just totally stomped us, we didn’t even get him to half health, even playing correctly, and on the third try we beat him in a close match, so two legitimate matches. The Fallen Gunslinger took us three attempts, first match was again a blowout by the boss where he just steamrolled us, second match was really close, but a lucky roll of a King’s Hand blocked an ultimate and then a round later three evasive tokens managed to keep him alive long enough to administer the coup de grace on our team. On the third attempt we managed to beat him handily enough that we had extra healing potions left over.

For yesterday’s session I wanted to mix things up a bit and so brought out Champions of Hara before diving back in to Dice Throne Adventure. I have only played Champions of Hara a few times a few years back but I really, really like this game. I am a sucker for card combo’s and synergies and this game does that mechanic very well. While this is not an overly complex game there are a lot of different mechanics and I did an awful job of trying to explain things. After a few brutal minutes of my babbling the other player said he had the basics down well enough and I figured showing the game would be better than trying to explain. The other player actually came out strong making good use of his high Spirit to complete Events and quickly gain a lead in energy but over extended himself about mid game and was knocked out by monsters which set him back enough for me to catch up and within a couple of rounds we were basically neck and neck with his Champion being better positioned for the win, particularly since I had painted myself in to a bad corner. However, a lucky Event card draw set me up to steal one of his cards which allowed me to play a four-card combo that let me kill a monster to pick up my last needed Energy and maneuver past some nasty stuff back to the Dojo to end my turn for the win. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem too impressed with the game so back to the bottom of the pile it goes, I guess. I thought he would enjoy it since he said he used to play MTG but it just didn’t seem to resonate for him.

We finished out the day with another Dice Throne Portal crawl. We did not get to quite finish the run due to time, but we are poised to explore the final tile and fight the last mini-boss which will unlock the portal to the Fallen Monk, boss number three.

While I still believe the head-to-head version of Dice Throne is a great game, having played multiple sessions of the co-op now, I am still not a big fan. I see what Roxley was going for and I applaud the attempt but for me it just falls short in too many areas. Some of the mechanics, I feel just intrinsically do not work and others I believe Roxley could have done a much better job of developing. I will keep plugging along since my friend really seems to enjoy playing, but I don’t see myself doing another campaign for quite a while, although I’d happily play the competitive version or even some Boss vs. Boss battles or just a co-op skirmish against the bosses. Luckily, I have several other co-op games I really do enjoy and several more on the way over the next 6 to 12 months.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

I've had Middara out on my table for the last few weeks. While it's great to not have to set up and put away such a massive game every time I want to play, I find that it does significantly diminish my household's interest in playing board games. There's apparently just something about gathering around the gaming table that gets them excited, vs trying to clear space on our always-cluttered kitchen table. So I reluctantly packed Middara all back up - I realistically wasn't going to get back to it until after I finished the Mass Effect trilogy anyways (about halfway through ME3 now) - and they immediately started asking if we could play board games again.

Played a couple games each of Dominion and Mystic Vale, both of which are just plain fun. Mystic Vale really grows on me every time I play it...I should probably grab the xpacs at some point.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Your problem is my solution. :twisted:

My urge to buy any more games has been completely wiped out by Middara. I've got it set up permanently on my gaming table and play an encounter every other night or so. I'm totally hooked, and it's helped my wallet significantly because I'm not constantly looking for the next shiny.

We're moving in roughly 5 weeks, so at some point this month I'm going to have to break down and pack it up, but I'm trying to hold off as long as possible.

Despite the time I've sunk into it already, part of me is contemplating starting over once I get a new permanent place set up in the new house. By that time I'll also have the player mats, and can correct any rules mistakes I discovered over the course of this playthrough. It's a testament to how good the game is that the prospect of starting over with 15-20 hours of gameplay already under my belt doesn't even cause me to bat an eye.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

This week I played the 20-year-old game Princes of Florence. I am truly on the cutting edge of modern gaming.

It's a really lovely game. Well, not physically. Princes of Florence is beige as hell. Even the blue lakes and green forests somehow to look beige. It has the table presence of parchment paper.

But the gameplay is top-notch. There's a quick auction at the beginning of each round to distribute a wide array of bonuses, and then each player takes two actions. Do this seven times, and you're done. The challenge is to use your 14 actions to produce as many great works (it is the Renaissance, after all) as possible. To produce a work you have to host artisans, and each artisan requires different amenities on your estate in order to produce their best work. So it's a balance between building out your estate polyomino-style, acquiring artisans, and using them to produce works.

I really enjoyed it. There's plenty of interaction thanks to the auction, and so many levers to pull to maximize the value of your works. Hopefully I won't have to wait another 20 years to play it again.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

That was my favorite game until Puerto Rico came out.

I wasn't very good at it but I loved it just the same. The auction and mostly non randomized player interaction was new to me and I was enchanted. The value of your pursuits is entirely controlled by bidding with very limited random card stuffs. If I had a better future math mind, I wold rock at that game. I do not have a good future math mind. I suck at that game. I still love the dynamic and would happily play and lose more.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

I got to play Letters from Whitechapel for the first time in an age this past weekend. My opponents were new to the game and... well, it didn't go well for them. I think I made fewer than 30 moves total.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

My gaming group has been finishing up all current content for DETECTIVE. We had played the original upon release, and recently went through L.A. CRIMES, DIG DEEPER, and DETECTIVE: SEASON ONE.

The latest entry we started tonight is VIENNA CONNECTION, and instead of detectives you now play CIA agents in the 1970s caught up in Cold War intrigue.

Every iteration of Detective has added small tweaks to gameplay, but the core concepts have remained relatively stable. From a gameplay perspective, you're essentially just playing a giant game of choose your own adventure. Case cards will offer various leads, and then you choose which leads to follow. The catch, and where the game's only real "strategy" comes in, is that you only have a limited amount of time to follow leads. Deciding which leads to follow, which to ignore, and which to dig deeper on using your always limited supply of tokens is the core gameplay. Once you run out of time, you are asked to answer a series of questions and are scored on how well you solved the case.

VIENNA CONNECTION has tweaked the gameplay a bit to offer a more immersive experience. The usual digital files accessed through a website have been ditched in favor of actual paper dossiers, which greatly adds to the theme. They also ditched the time-based mechanic of limiting cases in favor of "exposure." Now instead of time, you are limited by the amount of exposure you can risk for various zones of operation before the KGB discovers you. I found it a much more enjoyable and somehow less stressful form of time management. Finally, they've added some simple code deciphering to give it a bit more of a spy feel.

Perhaps the biggest game change, however, is that VIENNA CONNECTION ditches the Pass/Fail format of previous Detective titles and instead rewards you with more story if you managed to piece certain threads together or solve certain puzzles. At the end of the case you're also asked to make recommendations on further action to your superiors, and these decisions will have ramifications as the campaign goes on. As much as I love the Detective series, you could get the occasional clunker of a case you failed because you just didn't put everything together which could be a little frustrating. With VIENNA CONNECTION, you're not going to fail the story, you're just going to experience a slightly different storyline based on your performance.

It's been a lot of fun seeing how they've slowly improved and refined the game with each iteration, and at least so far Vienna Connection may be the best yet. I'm not totally sold on the cheesy number sequence codes they put in as the puzzle element, but I do love most of the other tweaks they've made to make the game more immersive and player-friendly.

The Detective series walks a fine line between amazing game experience and mediocre one, almost completely based on your group. I'm fortunate that my group really goes all-in, and we spend 2-3 hours on a case discussing theories, arguing over leads, taking notes, and really immersing ourselves in the story. I find it an incredible and really different gaming experience, but it's always one I hesitate to recommend casually since it does depend so much on the players.
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Anonymous Bosch
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

YellowKing wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 11:52 pm My gaming group has been finishing up all current content for DETECTIVE. We had played the original upon release, and recently went through L.A. CRIMES, DIG DEEPER, and DETECTIVE: SEASON ONE.
Has your group ever tried Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective?



It's been around in one form or another since 1981, so it's a genuine classic considering it still remains in print even today. It definitely provides for a great challenge, and with the right people, it's an absolute blast. It's also a terrific solo and couples game, for the reasons explained in the Shut Up & Sit Down review above.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." — P. J. O'Rourke
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YellowKing
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

We have not tried that one yet but I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan so I'll definitely mention it.
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